A question on Christianity & Judaism

Great Debates
1

Recently, I’ve had a crisis of Christian faith so to speak, and hoping the learned people here can help me out in a debate forum. This is my first post, although I’ve been reading the boards for over a year.

If some of the core beliefs of Christianity conflict with that of Judaism, can one said to be derived from the other? Let me try to expound a bit. I’m going to talk in generalities for the two, as I only know what I’ve been taught in Christianity and what I’ve read about Judaism. Please feel free to correct me or elaborate. I’m here to learn. You all are a heck of a lot smarter than me.

  1. The origin of evil. [ul]
    [li]Christianity teaches of a great rebelion in heaven, with Satan aspiring to be God, rebelling, gathering an army, being cast out of heaven, and being the source of all evil in the world in hopes of still somehow thwarting God. I believe that the rebellion part is taken from Isaiah 14 and the rest is from the NT.[/li][li]Judaism says that Satan is merely an agent of God, used to do God’s will. There was no rebellion, Isaiah 14 talks of the king of Babylon in poetic prose (Nebachanezzer I think) and Christianity has taken this out of context. God creates both good and evil and man is given the choice to choose between the two.[/li][/ul]
  2. Nature of God
    [ul]
    [li]Christianity in most forms holds the Trinitarian view, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Best explanation I’ve heard of this is a chemist looking at h20, steam is h20, water is h20, ice is h20, all with different forms and properties, but still h20.[/li][li]Judaism. One God, One Nature, no sub-divisions or explainations needed.[/li][/ul]
  3. Afterlife
    [ul]
    [li]Christianity has a Hell of eternal torture for those who don’t know Jesus and Heaven for those who do. Some believe in a Purgatory, some don’t (Catholic vs. Protestant). Hell is the place of the fallen angels and ruled by Satan. Jesus decended there to the paradise side, gathered up the OT saints, and took them to heaven, now it’s just a place of torture. I have a major issue with this one because not only does the idea go against the idea of a loving God, but the terminology used in the NT is Hades and Tartarus (Tartaroo), which is straight out of Greek mythology. If fact, the whole story of Satan being cast out of heaven sounds awefuly close to the Titans being thrown out of Mt. Olympus, especially since the NT copies the nomenclature.[/li][li]Judaism. Hell (Gehinnon) is not a nice place, but certainly not eternal. 12 months at most, to purify the soul, and then on to Heaven (Gan Eden). I know there is much more when you get into Jewish mysticism, but I’ll leave it at that. Seems to go along much better with the concept of a loving God.[/li][/ul]
  4. Original sin
    [ul]
    [li]Christianity has people being born as dirty sinners because of the fall in Eden who in no way can make up for that sin by themselves or their own works. All have sinned and fallen short . . . Of course, there are lot of examples of righteous men in the OT being called righteous and blameless.[/li][li]No such thing as original sin. I know I’m somebody because God don’t make no junk type of thing. Sin happens but it isn’t inevitable. And each is accountable for their own sin, the son is not to be held accountable for the sins of the father, which is in direct conflict to the notion of original sin[/li][/ul]

I know this has been lengthy, but it was a necessary evil (pun intended) and I didn’t even get into the whole salvation aspect or messianic expectations. If Christianity is supposedly based in the principles of Judaism (after all, Jesus was a Jew), why are these fundamental concepts so different? Can you honestly say the Christianity is based in Judaism with such drastic differences? Can they be reconciled?

One last thing, and this goes with the theme here.
Numbers 23:19. “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” NKJV
If God is not a man, than how can Jesus be God? If neither is the son of man, why did Jesus call himself this all the time? And, if the beliefs based on the OT are incorrect, then how can we believe the NT since it is based on the OT? Either the OT is correct invalidating the NT, or both are wrong and I’m going to have to start talking about pink unicorns, which I really don’t want to do. Please do not take that as an invite to bring that creature into the discussion, I’m looking mainly for a Christian vs. Judaism discussion, I’m not trying to disprove the existence of God.

2

Holy Cow! What a thorough and well researched post! Nicely done. I’m not gonna’ touch it with a ten foot pole.
I predict that when you get to heaven and ask God these questions, He’s going to press the buzzer on his desk and say “Mary, you’d better cancel my afternoon appointments.”

3

Nicely done indeed. Guess that makes him a personable El Guapo.

4

I’ll be keeping an eye in this thread once it gets rolling.

Excellent OP, El Guapo.

5

Other differences: For Christians the goal is get into heaven the afterlife is more important than life on Earth. For Jews the goal is the make this world a better place the word is I believe “Tikkun” to prefect the world.

6

One reason for the discrepancies is that great facilitator of diversity: Time. Judaism and Christianity have had 2,000 years to butt heads and more clearly define their beliefs on a number of issues.

At the time that the heretical Christian sect broke from Judaism, Judaism had more different strains than the Judaism that we see today with its (oversimplified for this post) divisions of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform). There were a number of different lines of belief that interwove throughout the Jewish faith. Among the factors that drove different theologies were the aspects of

  • the original (pre-Roman) Diaspora in which a significant number of Jewish thinkers lived in Mesopotamia and a smaller number in Egypt;
  • the tensions in the land of (Roman) Palestine in which different factions reacted in more religious or more secular ways to the presence of the Romans;
  • and a period of active proselytizing (that pretty well ended with the Roman persecutions under Nero and the destruction of the Temple in 70).

Christianity developed in this diverse set of beliefs, picking one set of strands from the many threads of Judaism. When Judaism went through its self-evaluation in the face of the threats that it faced, it selected as its core beliefs a set of principles that could be shown to have run through the entire history of the Jewish people. (This is not too different, sociologically, from the retrenchment that the RCC experienced at Trent, in the face of the Reformation.)

The Christian sect held on to a belief in the need for proselytization, a description of heaven and hell, a belief in a spiritual (and possibly physical) resurrection, and a number of other beliefs that were part of some Jewish teachings in the first century, but which were not considered core belief to be maintained when Judaism was reconsidered at the end of the first century.

In addition, Christians came to understand (correctly, incorrectly, or foolishly) that Jesus was Divine. This required a new interpretation of the idea of One God. When matched against the pronouncements by Jesus that he would send his Spirit as a guide, Christians came to the Triune belief of three Persons in one God.

Once Christianity had obviously separated from Judaism, then other factors come into play. The Jewish abhorrence for graven images, for example, is muted in the Gentile acceptance of statuary as “not the thing being worshipped.”

Reading both Paul’s letters and the Acts of the Apostles, we can see the early Christians wrestling with the amount of Jewish belief and practice that was required to be Christian. Paul’s letters date from the 40’s and 50’s with some recollections going back to the 30’s. Luke’s Acts are from the perspective of the 70’s or 80’s looking back at the 30’s and 40’s.

We can also look at Jewish writings (not Scripture) that were current in the first century and find many of the themes that have now been included in Christianity. The Christians did not go out and simply invent a new religion out of whole cloth and claim a Jewish background. The background is real, but we have to understand which threads and themes Christianity evolved from–they were real, but not core.

(And, of course, once you peel back the layers of things we’ve discussed, you can also find a great many things that the two religions do share.)

7

El Guapo:

Seems to me you’ve done your homework on Judaic beliefs. Just a few minor clarifications I’d like to add:

More accurately, G-d defines the standard for goodness, and man is given the choice whether to stick to it or whether to deviate from it.

There are some Old Testament passages that say that sins are punished in future generations. The Rabbis explain that this means that if a child follows in his father’s evil ways, he is punished for both his own sins and his father’s sins, but a child who does not will not be held accountable for his father’s sins.

8

Thanks everyone. Blush blush. But enough about me.

tomndebb: So are you implying that current Judaic beliefs were influenced by the uprise of Christianity? I can see your point about the Reformation and even the Counter-Reformation (example, the Catholic bible adding in the Apocrapha). I guess that would beg the question of how stable is Judaic theology, and what kind of influence did the various Jewish cults have at the time? I’ve heard that Jesus was heavily influence by the Essenes, a Jewish cult at the time. Of course, I’ve also heard he went to the far east and heavily influenced by buddhism as well, but that is a little far off the track here. However, by 300 A.D. they were extremely different. Can that be reconciled?

cmkeller: Thanks for the clarifications and yes, I’ve done quite a bit of research on Judaism. I figured if I had certain problems with Christian theology, I should look at where it all started, in Judaism. Unfortunetly, I live no where near a synagogue and have no Jewish acquantances. I have always been impressed by your posts, and would love to ask some questions through e-mail. But back to the OP, can you shed any light on the stability of current Judaic beliefs? Did the Jews of the day, or any sects thereof, hold all these beliefs that conflict so greatly with current Judaism?

9

I have always understood (and correct me if I am wrong) that at major difference between the two faiths is that Judiasm focusus on the community and Christianity on the individual. God’s covenant in the Old Testement was to take care of the Hewbrew people, not to save any particular person. Jesus’s preachings, in contrast, were about a person’s individual relationship with God. This is why Christianity stresses an afterlife so much more than Judaism–they were not sking “What happens to me after I doe?” but rather “What happens to my people after I die.” This is not atypical for anchient religions–the Greeks and Romans both, for instance, had a pretty fuzzy concept of an afterlife. The great appeal of many of the mystery religions that arose around the same time as Christianity (correct me if I am wrong, cmkeller, but it seems like one could get away with descibing the more mystic Jewish sects that arose around this time as being part of the “mystery trend”) is that they had these novel afterlives where people were happier than they had been on Earth.

Christianity has always had a tendency to backslide into Manacheism, the belief that there is a cosmic battle between good and evil taking place around us with evenly matched forces, and with the physical being the domain of evil and the spirit the domain of good. This is bad theology: in Genesis God creates "the heavens and the earth. In your true dualistic religions the earth is created by the evil god. This leaves Christianity with the Problem of Evil: If god is all-powerful and all-good, why do bad things happen? I’ve no answer for you, but people who over simplify it and say that “It’s Satan at work” don’t really understand what they are talking about, and they are not espousing traditional Christian theology. The source of evil in the world is man’s choice in Eden to seperate himself from God.

This is a bit out of context, don’tcha think? The second bit, and the important one, was that despite man’s innate depravity salvation was open to all, not just the handful of prophets and such that managed to be “blameless”. The very quote from Numbers that you cited suggests that the OT God’s overall view of Man was not exactly positive.

The overall tone of your post seems to suggest that you feel that Judiaism is uplifting and merciful and that Christianity is uniformly negative. May I humbly suggest that you may be suffering from exposure to a bad preacher or a bad church, not a bad religion?

I am guessing that you come from a protestant background, because you seem to feel that the OT and NT are either all right or all wrong. One of the basic tenants of protestantism is that revelation is closed–the bible is not only the divine word of God, it is the final word of God until the Second comming. Islam is like this as well. In contrast, both Catholosism and Judiasm believe in a process of continuing revelation: the OT itself covers thousands of years, over the course of which God told the Jews new things. No one said “Whoa, God, you didn’t mention this whole Kosher thing back in Eden. How can it have been alright then but wrong now?” God’s pronouncements are modified through the prophets. Catholics believe that God can speak through the Pope when needed to guide the Church. The problem, of course, is telling the difference between real prophets and fakes. This is where splits come from–Jews don’t accept Jesus as a genuine prophet and Christians don’t accept Mohammed as one.

This is sort of a ramble, and I probably mischarecterized some things. Any corrections would be appriciated.

10

I found the Gnostic approach to be interesting. Of course they were deemed to be heretics probably somewhere around the 4th century. (I could be wrong about this date.) The Gospel of St. Thomas, which the average Christian does not get to see, deviates in this way from the traditional cannonized gospels. (And other than the passion story) It contains a few lines with a Gnostic flavor. The idea that Jesus and ordinary men are “twins”. Suggesting that we are all one with God, and that God resides and is one with ALL things. Kind of no wonder the established church wouldn’t want everyone to study this particular writing. Just might cause their influence and power to slip a notch or two. Also the whole “one with God” idea smacks just a little of religons practiced in the East.
Manda Jo…Isn’t the “fall of Satan” a Catholic doctrine? I never learned such things being protestant. In fact I didn’t even know where Satan came from until I was older and began to question and open myself up to ideas that I hadn’t been spoon-fed all my life.

Needs2know

11

MandyJo, Judaism does teach and afterlife, which is in most ways, completely different from that of Christianity. Christianity was certainly influenced by the mystery religions, the rules set up in Corinthians (not allowing women to speak, covering the head, no more than three people at a time, tongues must have intepters) was because these things were common to the mystery religions of Corinth as well, and rules were needed to make sure they had less of an influence). The devil is very active in “traditional” Christianity, and I’ve even heard it say you can’t believe in God and not believe in Hell or the Devil. The devil is a prowling lion, put on the armour of God to protect yourself from the arrows of Satan, our fight is not of this world but against the devil, he’s the one who influenced Judas, Armageddon . . . All in the NT, all needs to be included in Christianity, especially the Protestant ideal of Sola Scriptura.

Salvation from what? Original sin? That is a Christian concept. And I believe that in Judaism, all are welcome to approach God, the Jews throw the covenant with Abraham, Gentiles through the covenant with Noah. Isn’t that what salvation is, the ability for man to approach God and dwell in his presence?

I appreciate your suggestion, and you may may be right (I came out of a Pentecostal/Charasmatic church, which I do have major issues with) and while the tone may lean that way, my purpose is to clear up the glaring conflict I see between the two. It’s like approaching a fruit store with all the signs, walking past the fruit stands outside and being greeted by the butcher inside and seeing all the meat behind the counter. I believed is was a fruit stand. How can you claim it’s a fruit stand when all around you is meat, with a couple trays of fruit lying around? I believed Christianity was based in Judaism, but after looking into it, I am not so sure anymore. But I can’t prove my Christian beliefs by looking more into Christianity and ignoring the conflicts it has with it’s roots. I’m not trying to prove or disprove anything to anyone but myself. Right now, Judaism makes much more sense to me, and I’ve been a Christian for 20 years.

Tell that to a Pentecostal/Charasmatic. While the Bible may be closed, they believe prophecy and revelation still occur today. But that isn’t the issue. Can you say Christianity was born from Judaism when so many core differences. I can say that the dog gave birth to the cat because they both have 4 legs and a tail, and if that is what you focus on, then you can prove it. But I’m looking at the whole animal here.

12

Pleae excuse all the spelling and typo errors. I spent all of my lunch writing that, and swear I re-read it. I finished reading it on the post page, and there are just so many errors. Must be the baked potato!

13

I am not really claiming that either current or first century Jewish theology was influenced by Christian theology (as in borrowing from or even specifically reacting against). What I do say is that with the persecutions of Nero, the theological threat from the Christian heresy, and, ultimately the war that climaxed in the destruction of the Temple, Jewish theological leaders decided to take stock of what the beliefs of Judaism actually were. When they looked back to the Torah (including its history of the Exodus) and to the time of re-dedication following the return of the exiles from Babylon and compared it to the wide range of beliefs and practices current in the late first century, they decided to pare away anything that they deemed not central to Judaism. There was already a substantial amount of commentary in the Talmud on which they could rely for direction. A number of beliefs that the Christians had embraced (notably the idea of resurrection and several other concepts relating to the afterlife) had actually arisen in the 2d and 1st centuries BCE. When compared to the core beliefs mentioned earlier, they were set aside. (Could there have been specific beliefs that may have been set aside specifically because Christians held them? That would certainly have been a human thing to do–on the other hand, whatever decisions they made had to be supported by Scripture, so I would not ever accuse them of simply discarding an idea to spite Christianity.)

In light of my last statement, the question of Scripture, itself, comes into the discussion. The Torah had clearly been considered Scripture since the Babylonian Captivity. The Prophets had been generally accepted as Scripture since before the second century BCE. At a council at Jamnia around 100, they tackled the question of whether to admit any other writings as canonical. These writings (called the Psalms or the Psalms and other Holy Writings) were judged on two basic characteristics: had they survived at least 500 years and were their ideas consistent with Scripture in the form of the Torah and the Prophets. A good general indicator of “authenticity” was whether a book had been included in the Hebrew books. Most of the books that did not pass the test were found in the Septuagint, the Greek translation that had been created in the Egyptian Jewish community. All the books that are now accepted as canonical that were not in the Torah or Prophets were included at that time and the canon was closed.

Note the date of the council at Jamnia. By 100 (or so) the Christians had been using a lot of different Jewish books as Scripture. (These were generally the “extra” books found in the Septuagint.) When the Jews closed the canon, excluding several of the books which Christians had already begun using as Scripture, the Christians did not feel any need to go back and eliminate those books. These books are the contentious Apocrypha. They were not added by the Catholics at some later date. Rather, they were used by all Christians until the Reformation. (There were, throughout that period, various scholars who challenged the inspired nature of one or another of those books.) When the Reformation occurred, several Reformers, (notably, but not exclusively Luther), went back and reviewed the manner in which the books had been accepted by Christianity and rejected by Judaism, compared the theology that they preferred against the contents of those books, and declared that the Jews had the better argument and threw the books out of their Bibles.

Since Maccabees includes the first reference to resurrection and also includes an explicit reference to praying for the dead, Luther was eager to eliminate while the RCC was adamant to include those books. The rest of the books, including the “Wisdom” literature includes references that the RCC considers important prefigurements of Jesus while they are not deemed so important by Protestants.

As to Essene or Buddhist or any other influence on Jesus: most of that stuff is wild speculation. Some of it is intriguing because of various parallels of thought, but no one has ever found any direct (or, seriously, any indirect) links. The fact that Jesus is reported to have begun his ministry 18 years after he purported showed up the rabbis at the Temple spurs some people to wild fantasies and causes a few others to seriously ponder what-if scenarios. The truth is that we simply have no information on the subject.

Needs2know, the Gnostics were already being opposed by what would become mainstream Christianity before the end of the first century. Several of the Patristics in the early second century were already actively condemning their teachings. There may have been a specific condemnation in the fourth century, but the Christian trend had been away from or against that sort of belief from the very beginning.

14

El Guapo:

A common misconception. Much of current Christianity was developed to spite its Judaic roots, to make the religion more palatable to Romans.

Hmmm…according to your profile, you live pretty close to Chicago, which has a sizable Jewish community. If you’d like, send me a private e-mail, and I’ll try to steer you toward Jewish resources in your area.

Thanks…and go right ahead, anytime.

I don’t believe so. There were a number of different Judaic sects back then, including Sadducees (which believed the Torah/Old Testament to be less literally binding) and Pharisees (which believed it to be extremely binding, and are the sect that the Rabbis of the Talmud belonged to…thus, the forerunners of today’s Jews), but I never heard of any which believed in such things as Original Sin or Eternal Hell (as a normal case; even in mainstream Judaic theology, there are some exceptionally evil people who are believed to have earned such exceptional punishment). The Satan vs. G-d idea might have been borrowed from Zoroastrianism; certainly men of the Middle East were exposed to this Persian religion.

Very little is known about the Essenes, who many think JC might have been associated with. However, it is known that they were reclusive ascetics, which doesn’t seem to square with the evangelical ethic that is so essential to Christianity.

Chaim Mattis Keller

15

Manda JO writes:

Not precisely correct.

The laws of kashrut, like all of the mitzvot, are only binding on Jews. Despite a certain number of mystics and bad jokes, Adam is not presumed to have been Jewish, and therefore kashrut would have made no difference to him (in fact, most of the laws of kashrut deal with eating animal byproducts, and flesh-eating was not permitted to the antediluvians, but only to Noah and his descendants).

The Torah is eternal; note that the prophets introduced no new mitzvot, but only exhorted people to follow the existing ones more closely or in a better fashion (indeed, one of the two signs of a false prophet is that he purports to introduce new mitzvot, or to declare existing ones void). The words of the Nevi’im are considered to be of a lesser level of Heavenly communication; haShem spoke to Moses when the latter was in a conscious state and in full command of his faculties, whereas the Nevi’im were addressed in dreams and visions.

OTOH, it has always been understood that “the Torah is not in heaven”; i.e., the Torah (both written and oral), revealed at Sinai, contains all of the mitzvot and all of the information necessary as to how to follow the mitzvot (if not always why they are as they are). Thus, in every generation, the Sages of that generation examine Torah for a better and deeper understanding. That such an understanding may come is expectable, but it contains nothing really new.

16

Very enjoyable thread. I once saw an article about a jewish sect called the Samaritans. Apparently, this group still exists-as a Christian, I only know of them from the Gospel parables(The Samaritan woman, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan). I was quite surprised to learn that they still live in Israel. my questions: what are their beliefs, and how do their beliefs differ from orthodox Judaism?

17

I’m not sure what modern Samaritans are like. My understanding of the historical Samaritans, however, was that they are the descendants of a nation of insincere converts (they converted out of fear of the Israelites, not out of belief in the Israelite faith), and that while they always claimed to adhere to Jewish belief, they were extremely lax in observance of commandments and extremely hostile to Rabbis.

The Rabbis in question are the Pharisees, who the Christian Gospels see as evil hypocrites. The Samaritans were hostile to them, thus the “Good” hero of the famous story.

So, to recap: their beliefs (back then) wouldn’t, on paper, be different, but their practices set them apart from the Orthodox Jews of their day.

Chaim Mattis Keller

18

This is very illuminating. I do have a couple of questions though.

Mand Jo: You stated that Evil began with man’s choice to separate from God by eating the fruit. How does that jibe with the serpent who tempted them? Are you saying that the serpent was acting explicitly as God’s agent rather than against his will? How does that jibe with God’s reply, which was to curse the serpent ever after in payment for the deed?

cmkeller: I have noticed that you use “G-d” in your posts rather than spelling out “God”. May I ask why this is? I have heard of a prohibition on the word “Jehova” or “Yahweh” before, but have never heard of one on “God”.

19

Many Orthodox Jews such as myself do not write the entire word when referring to the actual creator because of the possibility that the text we wrote might be erased or destroyed, which would be disrespectful to G-d. Not all Rabbinical authorities agree on whether this problem applies to the English word (some say it only applies to the Hebrew), and not all agree that typing on a computer is the equivalent of writing, but as far as I’m concerned, why take chances?

Chaim Mattis Keller

20

Thanks cmkeller. Actually, I live on the southside and most (if not all) of the Jewish population lives up north, but I’ll talk about that in private.

I have to say I’m shocked and disappointed. Where are all the Christians? I thought for sure they would have something, anything, to say on this subject. These are questions that I can’t seem to get past and was hoping to hear a Christian’s opinion. And even though none of the Christians that I’ve shared this with had any answers either, I figured someone here would! Come on, rally the troops! It’s not easy to doubt something you have believed in all your life, but then to have no one with any answers would lead me to believe . . . or perhaps NOT believe.
cmkeller

Do you mean to spite or in spite of its roots. I can understand in spite of, since no one can seem to answer these questions (yet) it would mean that even though the concepts I presented Judaism in the OP are completely different from Christianity, Christianity developed anyway. But to spite would tend to make me think that there was a type of collusion by early Christians and Roman believers to put down or replace Judaism. Can you clarify for me?
Ptahlis

I’m not sure on this one, since I’ve always been taught that the serpent was the devil, but I have to doubt that one now to. But perhaps, the serpent presented the other side of free will (let’s not make this a free will discussion), lied to Adam and Eve about the consequences, and thus punished for the temptation and lie. If a man cheats on his wife with a woman who seeks out the man and seduces him all the while knowing he is married (or vice versa), isn’t she in some way responsible for his infedelity? If she didn’t persue and present the temptation he would not have cheated with her. He may have cheated with someone else, but the deed was already done, so they are both to blame. I kind of see it like that.

But again, this is off the OP, just my two cents for today.